Collin Kelley's Great Expectations

Poet Collin Kelley, author of Slow to Burn scheduled for re-release in July, blogs about his experience as a longtime R/W-sponsored writer.

My chapbook, Slow To
Burn, launched in 2006 at the dearly missed galerieMC, owned and curated by
my friend Marscha Cavaliere. With its gleaming floor, wall of windows and beautiful
photography, galerieMC was a hip, central place to hold the first reading for Slow To Burn.

Forty people showed up on the afternoon of the event (not a
bad turnout), but at the time I was very disappointed. I had been spoiled by
the more than 150 people who turned out for the release of my first collection,
Better To Travel, back in 2003 during
the Atlanta Festival of the Book. I’ve grown wiser and more realistic over the
past five years. If I get twenty-five people out to an event, I’m thrilled.

On any given day, a poetry reading is competing with four or
five other events, soccer practice, traffic, weather, exhaustion. With
entertainment now a click away on YouTube and poetry available for purchase at
Amazon or to be read for free on dozens of online literary journals, live
readings and signings are almost an anomaly. With Kindles and iPads, printed
books are going the way of vinyl records.

There is still a place for readings and workshops, for human
interaction with literature. Even if only four or five people show up, there is
a rare opportunity to share knowledge, and communicate on a personal level. Use
social media to build your audience, but don’t forget that face-to-face contact
still has currency. All the Facebook fan pages, tweets on Twitter, and YouTube
videos in the world can’t replace hearing an author perform their work live.